


Bridges Could Burn For You

by th_esaurus



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Sex Work, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 01:44:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19861492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: “You want me to suck you off?” Eggsy asks. He says it as though he’s asking if Harry wants more sugar in his tea, and Harry certainly considers it.“Surprise me in the morning,” he says instead.





	Bridges Could Burn For You

**Author's Note:**

> right back on my 2015 bullshit????? 
> 
> for destronomics, with love. this is tagged _unhappy ending_ and i mean it.

Harry Hart is running late.

He’s _already_ running late, and he still needs to stop and clean the blood out of his earlobe. Intel had not pegged the mark as a fighter: too low in the pecking order to put up a fuss, Merlin’s notes said, he’ll cause little trouble. But organised crime gave certain men a misplaced pride, a sense of job satisfaction they were loathe to betray.

He’d got most of the viscera off his cheek and neck - head turned neatly away from the shot, but enough of it ricocheted off the wall behind them to leave him a mess - but he wants to be thorough. There’s a run down gym he can use just outside Birmingham, on the tail end of the M40, a quaintly old-school place with squeaking varnished wood and beat-up leather punching bags. A shower room and sauna that’s little more than stepped tiles and steam, but money has long been changing hands with the proprietor to make sure no questions are asked about flecks of blood pooling in the grotty drains. Harry suspects, to his low amusement, that the owner assumes visiting agents to be exceedingly polite mafia. Kingsman has never disabused him of the notion.

So Harry is late, and he will be later still. This wouldn’t usually bother him in the slightest - he’s never yet encountered an appointment that wouldn’t wait for him - but tonight it’s a clear annoyance.

He patches through a call from the cab’s untraceable comms.

The hotel concierge is studiously pleasant, with a lovely northern lilt. He’s been held up by work, Harry says - an empathetic little moue from her end - but his companion will be checking in for the two of them, if she would be so good as to give him the key.

“Of course, sir. His name?”

“Eggsy,” Harry says cooly. 

He doesn’t offer a surname and she doesn’t ask.

“Put a few bottles of champagne on ice in the lodge for him, if you’d be so kind.”

“Krug, sir?”

“The Bollinger, I think,” Harry corrects her, helpful and mild.

*

The boy is in bed when he arrives, bare-chested, splayed out in his boxers. It’s past midnight, and he’s asleep, and the champagne remains unopened in the kitchenette. Eggsy had joked he’d have to hitchhike his way this far up north, paying burly lorry men in trade for the journey. “Certainly not,” Harry told him snippily, and had given him money for the train. He was not a jealous man and not greatly possessive of the boy in general, but he had set this weekend aside to enjoy Eggsy’s exclusive company. As long as no great disaster befalls the world in the next forty eight hours - and he couldn’t give a toss about minor diplomatic squabbles - Harry considers himself out of office. 

It’s an indulgence, certainly, but that’s nothing to get worked up over.

The leather luggage rack, in the corner by the bed, is conspicuously empty; the boy’s hoodie and tracksuit bottoms flung without ceremony on the floor. He came with the clothes on his back, Harry muses, and nothing else.

He undresses with no great haste at all. Takes the time to hang up his suit jacket and trousers in the wardrobe - wooden hangers, he notes, pleased - and picks up the boy’s clothes too, shaking out the worst of the creases. Harry sees no point in creeping about like a mouse, and Eggsy is awake by the time he gets to unbuttoning his shirt, watching him. Not lurid, but with a tired little smile. His eyes look extraordinarily weary. 

“Do me a strip tease,” he jokes. 

“I can’t imagine anything less appealling,” Harry retorts. Shirt off, socks next, briefs last. Eggsy makes to shuffle out of his boxers as Harry clambers into the bed but Harry isn’t bothered. It’s entirely too late to fuck. “Whatever’s comfortable,” he tells Eggsy blithely.

“You want me to suck you off?” Eggsy asks. He says it as though he’s asking if Harry wants more sugar in his tea, and Harry certainly considers it.

“Surprise me in the morning,” he says instead.

Eggsy smiles, too dozy for a grin, and leans in for a kiss that Harry’s happy to give. A string of sweet little pecks, tired and teasing, and then Harry catches him by the chin to keep him still for one longer, lusher seeing-too, wet-mouthed and lovely. There’ll be plenty of time in the morning.

He pulls the boy in against his chest as he settles into the pillow. Harry has never had a single issue sleeping in a strange bed: no weepy homesickness from his childhood dorms or insomniac discomfort in hotels and safe houses. Within minutes he’ll be under. But it’s wonderfully pleasant to spoon up against a warm body for a moment or two before consciousness escapes him. Pleasant to feel Eggsy wriggle back against his crotch and thighs, making himself entirely comfortable. 

“Night, Harry,” Eggsy murmurs.

“Goodnight, Eggsy,” Harry replies, quite warm.

*

He does, indeed, wake to the loping birdsong and Eggsy sucking his cock. 

Not a surprise, then. His complaints are—minimal.

He can’t actually see Eggsy. He’s tented rather saucily under the thin autumn duvet, and Harry can feel his tight hand at the base of Harry’s dick, the way he likes it, almost restrictive; his tongue nimble on the head. Harry mumbles incoherently to signal he’s awake, and it earns him a sloppy kiss on his balls. Incorrigible. 

“Rise and shine, sleepin’ beauty,” Eggsy says, muffled, and Harry can feel his familiar grin against his cock. He prefers not to be the kind of man who can function well on six hours of sleep or less, but if it’s required of him—

Well, he _requires_ to be awake enough to fuck the boy’s mouth, and finds it’s not too much of a hardship at all.

*

He likes watching Eggsy eat. 

Harry’s rather miffed, in fact, that he missed the boy’s reaction on discovering this little Cumbrian hideaway: somewhat more modernist than Harry’s own tastes but it’s been designed for both comfort and aesthetic. Rather a lot of pillows and throws. Still, he remembers Eggsy’s contained trepidation the first time he booked them into a suite, eyes darting over the crisp bedsheets, the espresso machine, the writing desk. So he had wanted to see Eggsy’s reaction to the lodge. Breakfast will have to do.

He tells himself it’s nothing so crass as a gaudy class fetish; Eggsy is not a pauper who’s never seen a decent spread of food in his life. But he likes Eggsy’s relish, that split second of consternation before the enjoyment settles like a glow in his eyes. He’s a keen willingness to try everything: jam on one slice of toast, marmalade on another, eggs three ways, a piece of every fruit in the bowl. He sips his coffee black, likes it; adds sugar, likes it more. 

“Milk?” Harry offers, wanting to see him taste it anew a third time.

“Ta very much,” Eggsy says, breadcrumbs on his bottom lip.

His lack of refinement is a charm in Harry’s orderly life. He supposes it’s part of what drew him back to the boy. Not his usual habit at all: he is well accustomed to poised young agency men, specific features, polite and practised in their skill. There is a sloppiness to Eggsy that he would not usually abide by, not so much in his talent as an escort but in his overall demeanour. A bit of rough. It’s almost too much of a cliche for a man like Harry to indulge in.

He had met Eggsy quite by accident, needing to shake a tail. Veered into Smith Street, thinking fast, and slowed at the nearest manned lamp-post. Wound his window down just enough to signal the boy into the passenger seat.

They had sat in gruff silence for half a minute while Harry waited to see if his dreary little shadow would pass. No such luck. He could see the car idling in his rear view mirror, and kept his eyes on it as he unzipped his fly. 

“Make it loud,” Harry had told him, and the boy did not ask questions.

The tail lingered a while, and then slowly, smoothly, reversed a little out of the alley and disappeared into the night.

“You can stop if you like,” Harry told him. He wasn’t doing a poor job, but Harry had priorities. This had not been his intent for the evening’s entertainment.

Eggsy had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaned back against the door, and sized Harry up. Almost startled, Harry met his brazen stare, and had a proper look at him for the first time. Sharply handsome, a wise wariness in his eyes; out of his teens but not by much, Harry would wager. Dressed appallingly. “I reckon you’re good for the money, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t mind if you want me to keep going.” 

“Very noble,” Harry had laughed, tucking himself back in. “I’d rather like a drink first.”

He drove the boy to his usual club and ordered two whiskeys - his own on the rocks and a second watered down with soda - and they took one of the louche booths at the back, high walled, padded leather, alcove-like. It surprised him how easy the boy was to talk to. Harry was not a chatty man, measured in his conversation, but the boy was smart enough not to need the truth. Their paths had crossed, under tense circumstances, and that was enough justification to let Harry buy him a drink or two.

It was quiet, almost deserted in the club that night, and the booths were designed for privacy. “Pick up where I left off?” the boy had offered.

Harry made a show of thinking about it. “Yes, alright,” he murmured. Spread his legs a little, for the boy’s ease. Drank his whiskey and hummed gutturally when he came. All in all quite pleasant.

“What should I call you?” Harry had asked as he wiped down his cock with a cloth serviette. 

“Eggsy,” the boy said, distracted.

Harry, who was trained, among other things, to defrock liars, knew immediately that this really was his name. A nickname, maybe, but not an alias. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t see the boy again.

He didn’t ask what Eggsy charged, and paid him far more than he knew the boy would consider fair. Eggsy didn’t question that either; a fractional widening of his eyes at the amount before he pocketed it. 

“Are you—in trouble?” he had asked, carefully.

“Always one kind or another,” Harry told him, very lightly. 

*

Harry chuckles to himself.

“What?” Eggsy asks, kicking his shin softly under the breakfast table. 

“Oh, nothing important,” Harry tells him, meaning it.

*

Harry sends the boy out to fetch the bags from the car. He’s slow, and Harry can see him through the french doors lingering over the view. Cumbria must be a foreign land to this city lad, miles and miles of undulating countryside, endless sky, the orchestral hum of the waterways, birds of prey, grazing sheep and distantly burring cattle. Harry feels ever so pleased with himself for bringing the boy here. They could’ve hunkered down in the Corinthia for a weekend, made dinner reservations at Michelin-starred brasseries, but even Harry craves the clarity of the country sometimes. He imagines Eggsy only ever had seaside jaunts as a youth; coin pushers and 99s on an overcast pier, with parents Harry cannot picture and does not care to.

He lugs two suitcases in from the boot. “What d’you drive that fuckin’ cab about for?” Eggsy asks, comfortable enough now for ballsy questions. Safe ones, of course, nothing searchingly personal and nothing that would draw Harry into a lie; but Harry likes the tit-for-tat.

“Don’t you find it quaint?”

“Weird, more like.”

“I thought you enjoyed my trollying you about.”

“Didn’t say I didn’t,” Eggsy snaps, cheeky, and Harry is forced to beckon him over for a sound kissing. He is weak when the boy gives him lip, and Eggsy clearly knows it. Nothing chaste about his kisses now. Harry could easily devour him, and finds himself not at all alarmed by the idea.

“Come along,” Harry chides, even though he’s the one waylaying them. Still pressing his lips to the boy’s mouth like punctuation marks. “Get dressed.”

“Dressed?”

“Did you think we’d lounge around fornicating all weekend?”

“Uh, that’s what you’re paying for,” Eggsy says, without bite. His hands light on Harry’s waist.

“I’m _paying_ for the privilege of your company on a weekend getaway.”

“And my arse.”

Harry clucks his tongue, both chastising Eggsy and agreeing. “And your mouth too, quite. I fancy a wander. Perhaps I shall fuck you on Helvellyn. So get dressed, if you please.”

“Get me my stuff?”

“I hardly think so. The smaller suitcase is yours.”

“What?”

“‘Wot’ is not ‘thank you, Harry.’” 

He knows very well that everything he’s brought is wildly outside of the boy’s personal style. That was entirely the point. “What if it doesn’t fit?” Eggsy mutters.

Harry does not roll his eyes, but levels him a gaze with the exact same intent. “I’m a fucking tailor,” he says. “Of course it fits.”

*

Gunmetal grey suits him perfectly. Chinos that show off, for once, the shape of his legs, thick around the thigh and calf; a sweater that fits him, snug, and doesn’t just hang on his frame like he’s a saggy washing line. Harry is ever so smug about how nicely the boy cleans up. He lends Eggsy his comb and pomade, lets him play at sprucing himself up in the mirror. Eggsy seems to like the walking boots Harry’s bought him, sturdy chestnut things, thick-soled and broad. 

“Yeah,” he says absently, “I trained with the Marines for a spell. Reminds me of drills.”

“Not a pleasant memory, I should wager?”

“It was somethin’ different,” Eggsy shrugs. 

He baulks bodily at the chic maroon peacoat Harry holds up for him, though. “Get fucked, old man,” he laughs.

“And if you get cold, hmm?”

“You’re gonna shag me, aren’t you? Keep me warm?”

“I’ll put it in the car,” Harry says mildly.

*

Wildly against protocol - he was never a stickler for it - Harry has set his glasses to incognito; no HUD, no two way comms, just a tiny red blink in his periphery to show when HQ is calling. There’s never total escape from duty, of course: Kingman’s satellite system means global coverage. Powering down his glasses like this was always intended strictly for deep cover ops, and Harry imagines the little red flash in the corner of his eye is Merlin’s silent, judgmental fury, the promise of a verbal lashing later; but he couldn’t care less right now.

The boy is light on his feet. Skipping a few paces ahead of Harry up the hill path, then enjoying the wait for him to catch up. There’s something deliciously buoyant and uncaring in his attitude out here, as though he’s no longer hemmed in by the claustrophobic city, no longer constantly looking for getaway routes or clandestine alleyways. Just the wind chill flushing his cheeks, tousling his hair, his lips vivid pink from his open-mouthed panting as they take up a brisk pace. 

Harry has noted, of course, that Eggsy is always on his guard. It comes with the work, he supposes; not a particularly foreign concept to Harry Hart. But the boy is quick to delight and lets it flare up in his eyes without irony. It’s probably why, Harry muses, he was drawn back. 

It was never intentional. Almost two months before he found himself in the area again, turning idly down Smith Street. A familiar form slouched against the lamp-post. 

He had been utterly delighted by Eggsy’s blossoming grin of recognition as Harry wound the cab window down smoothly. 

“Here comes trouble,” he’d said brightly.

“I find myself at my leisure and quite at a loss what to do with my time,” Harry had smiled back. “Hop in, why don’t you?”

The boy was an excellent cocksucker.

More tentative about getting fucked, but Harry had never seen any point in being rough. He was perfectly happy to take things slow and pay by the hour regardless. He liked the way Eggsy clutched his back when he thrust in - not thoughtless rutting from the hip, but long, driving strokes, deep and almost wounding, from the sounds the boy made. Harry checked in often. “Too much?” he murmured, kissing Eggsy’s neck.

“No,” Eggsy had gasped out. “No, fuck, keep going—”

That first time, Eggsy had seemed shocked that he, of the two of them, came first. Harry was inordinately pleased by the spectacle. By his candid, dumbstruck sobs.

It became a regular indulgence. 

Harry began to find his agency boys monotonous. All their dirty talk and put-on begging for Harry’s dick, the ability to orgasm in a timely fashion long ago fucked out of them. Eggsy, at least, brought some of his personality to bed. Unwise, perhaps, for much of his undiscerning clienete, but Harry liked the bite of his barbs, his honesty when he was most vulnerable.

“I hope my company’s not too terrible?” Harry had asked him once, rolling off a spent condom.

“You pay better,” Eggsy had told him, both a joke and the truth.

“Is that my only virtue?” Harry asked, dry.

Eggsy had hesitated for a moment, and then shifted over, half lying on top of Harry, his palms warm on Harry’s chest, and kissed him. He always kissed like that in the beginning, tentative at first, as though the concept were somewhat foreign or somehow fearful, before he became bold. Harry very much liked the weight of Eggsy’s tongue in his mouth.

“I like that you’re nice,” Eggsy had murmured.

“Very few people in my life have described me as _nice_ ,” Harry told him, surprisingly honest.

“I’ve had worse,” Eggsy shrugged awkwardly.

Certainly Harry entertained no thoughts of—

Rescuing the boy. He had seen Pretty Woman, and it was not his predilection. But he was quite happy to tip double and have Eggsy take on fewer of those problem clients.

If it meant Harry got his dick wet more often than usual - if it meant Harry became comfortable in a way that was dangerously close to complacent, well; it was not exactly a hardship.

*

They set up a picnic by Ullswater. 

Harry had asked the concierge to whip them up a hamper and finds it delightful: a plaid blanket, charcuterie, brie and stilton, a fresh bloomer and local butter, blackberries and little perfectly formed victoria sponges. Sparkling water, a nip of port for the cheese, and two cool bottles of Scottish cider. 

“Lush,” Eggsy announces, leaning over the spoils.

The day is neither warm nor sun-soaked, but the clouds seem extraordinarily high and patchwork, letting the midday light filter down rhythmically. The lake is calm and utterly vast, the surrounds dotted with ramblers and twitchers, all happy to keep their distance from one another; distant moving specks, careful not to venture close enough to be forced to make small talk with strangers. The boy’s gaze is caught by a bevy of roe about two miles off into the checkerboard hills, unbothered by hunters, human or animal, and Harry watches his wide-eyed wonder for a moment. He feels fond in a way that’s unfamiliar, like a long-forgotten memory triggered by a sudden sense of deja-vu. 

“Come here,” he says eventually, his voice little more than a low rumble. He feels lusty out here, and unashamed of it. Wonders idly if the fauna are in heat; if it’s catching.

He holds out an oozing blackberry.

“I can feed meself,” Eggsy rolls his eyes, plopping down next to him on the blanket.

“I like spoiling you,” Harry says, guttural.

So he feeds the boy and chases each bite with a wet kiss. Juice on his sticky lips. Their hands roam almost unconsciously as they shuffle closer together, food forgotten in favour of kisses, and Eggsy rucks Harry’s shirt up out of his belt, his palms hot on Harry’s stomach. “Fuck me,” Eggsy mutters. It’s a shivery delight every time he actively asks for it.

“I rather think I will.”

There’s something so earthy and hedonistic about seating his dick in the boy out here in the open wilderness. Eggsy rides him, his sweating back slick against Harry’s chest where his sweater hikes up at every thrust, facing out as he rolls his hips, soaking in the view. Utterly exposed, Harry is sure some distant hiker will blink, look twice to make sure of what he’s seeing, and then turn to his companion, damning the two of them as obscene. 

He could not give a fuck.

When he’s close, he lifts Eggsy’s hips a little higher, eases him right off, closing his eyes at Eggsy’s throaty keen of emptied loss. He tugs off the condom, close to frantic. “May I?” Harry breathes, his mouth at the nape of Eggsy’s neck.

“Yeah—” Eggsy manages, and he lowers himself back down as Harry cants up to meet him, the way not quite as smooth unsheathed but unfathomably warm, brutally intense. Harry lets Eggsy do the work, coaxing the kind of gut-deep orgasm out of his bare cock that makes Harry bite down on Eggsy’s clothed shoulder, growling in satisfaction. 

He pulls out too abruptly, soothes Eggsy’s contorted little frown with an open-mouthed kiss and then lays the boy against him to wring his cock, rapid and desperate, until Eggsy swears, keens, and swears again, spurting come on Harry’s hand and the blanket that doesn’t belong to them.

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” Eggsy whines, digging his knuckles against his eyes. 

“Never mind,” Harry soothes him, and he means it utterly. 

He thinks that perhaps, for that split second when Eggsy came under his hands, that he hadn’t a care in the whole world. 

*

It’s awfully easy not to think about Kingsman at all when he’s thinking about Eggsy.

*

He changes Eggsy into another outfit for dinner, and it’s as good an excuse as any to fuck in the shower. Eggsy’s hair smells of Harry’s pomade and the outdoors, that grassy, lavender smell of a long-travelled breeze. Harry can’t help but bury his nose next to the boy’s ear and breathe him in before the scent is washed clean.

He pats Eggsy dry with a thick towel after. Slings it over his shoulders like a cloak and cups his jaw for tender kisses. Eggsy hums happily against his lips, a pleasant tingle. “You wanna skip dinner?” he asks. 

“Absolutely not, we can’t possibly cancel at this hour.”

“You’re so fucking prim,” Eggsy laughs, and Harry smacks his thigh, not very gently. 

He does rather regret his own propriety once Eggsy’s dressed. A deep navy polo, unbuttoned at the neck - Eggsy has a mole like a beauty mark under his chin and Harry knows a v-cut flaunts it best - black chinos, rolled above the ankle. Oxfords. No socks. 

“My feet’ll sweat,” Eggsy gripes, toeing the rug uncomfortably.

“No socks,” Harry insists. All very _a la mode_. 

“You got some kind of foot fetish now, old man?”

“ _Hardly._ ”

“I charge extra for kinky shit, y’know.”

“Be quiet and tie your shoes. We’ll be late.” 

*

Dinner, perhaps, was ill judged. Harry is not above admitting his mistakes - at least not above admitting them to himself. 

He finds Eggsy shy in this sort of company. The restaurant is casually extravagant: low lighting, a live band sequestered in the far corner, amuse bouche ushered to the table as soon as they’re seated, the waiter explaining the tasting notes _sotto voce_. There are no prices on the menu, something Harry has never even noticed before, but he sees Eggsy’s eyes flick nervously across the luxe paper, looking for a hint. 

The boy is sullen when he’s shy, a defence mechanism Harry has seen before in him, but his only handling method is to be stern. 

“Don’t sulk,” he chides.

“I’m not—”

“I’ve brought you out for a very nice dinner and you’re going to sulk all evening.”

Eggsy shoots him an ugly expression. “You brought me here to show off your bit of rough to all these posh pricks.” He could at least sling his insults quietly. “Make me out like some idiot who doesn’t know which fucking fork to eat his oysters with.”

“ _Eggsy,_ ” Harry tuts, disappointed.

The boy shifts uncomfortably in his seat. The polo shirt Harry’s put on him is slim-fitting, almost tight, and clings to his chest in a way that makes Harry look, low, even as they argue. “Just—order me whatever, alright? You know I got no clue what half this French shit is.” Eggsy slumps, ungainly, in his seat. “I’ll suck you off in the loos before we go so you won’t think it’s a wasted night, yeah?”

“Crass,” Harry mutters.

“That’s what you pay me for, ain’t it?” Eggsy bites back.

They sit in silence, then, and not a comfortable one. The sommelier brings wine, presents Harry the label, then pours a glug for him to swirl, smell, taste and approve. “Sir?” he asks Eggsy, and Eggsy, terribly rude, shrugs. His glass is filled regardless.

“I’ve upset you,” Harry says, matter-of-fact. He sees no reason to apologise. 

“You just go over the top sometimes,” Eggsy says eventually, still twitchy and guarded, his arms crossed. Harry shouldn’t enjoy the challenge of softening him, but it feels like a task with nothing great at stake: like a tricky crossword puzzle. 

“I can’t spoil you?” he says, his head cocked to one side.

Eggsy shrugs again, but it’s less combative. Something helpless in it. “Why d’you want to?”

It’s a surprisingly brutal question.

“I like you very much, Eggsy. I like your company. I like making you feel appreciated.”

Eggsy huffs out a small laugh, and there’s some ugly bitterness in it that displeases Harry intensely. He feels as though he’s being mocked, and doesn’t like one bit that he’s not in the joke. “You’re still gonna send me home at the end of this though, aren’t you?” Eggsy says, his bite fading fast.

As though Harry is condemning him to something.

“If you’d like to discuss the terms of our arrangement,” Harry says cooly, “I’m more than open to it.”

That itching silence falls across them again. Eggsy looks at him this time, and his gaze is steady, and his eyes are cold.

“You don’t really give much of a shit about me at all,” he says at last. “Do you, Harry?”

“Now, look here—”

“It’s alright,” Eggsy interrupts him. He puts his hands up, not defence but defeat. “Overstepped the line, didn’t I?”

Harry doesn’t quite know what to do with him. Things have never been personal enough for the heat of an argument.

“Eggsy—”

But Eggsy shakes his head. He seems suddenly regretful, a complicated sort of emotion, and Harry can’t tell what’s expected of him here; the distance of a client or the reassurance of a lover? 

He’s one of those, and not quite the other.

“Nah—nah,” Eggsy waves him off again. “You’re alright. I mean it. I like—I like what we’ve got. Didn’t mean to rock the boat.”

“You’d just rather I took you to McDonald’s?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Eggsy laughs, and his laughter makes Harry smile again. Equilibrium tentatively restored.

He shifts his foot under the table and lets his leg rest between Eggsy’s, comfortably. “We can skip dessert,” he offers.

“Go back to the lodge and shag, you mean?”

“I’ll let you fuck me,” Harry says, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Would you like that?”

Eggsy seems beautiful when he’s caught off guard. His lips slightly parted, his eyes slightly wide. “I dunno,” he murmurs earnestly.

“Well,” Harry says, as kind as he can, “why don’t we try it and see what you think?”

*

It feels like love-making with the boy in his arms. His wet breath against Harry’s neck, one hand braced against Harry’s thigh. The pillows are soft, the duvet is soft, and though Eggsy’s body is muscular and strained, sharp angles at his jaw and elbows, he too seems soft. His eyes are watery and his chest shakes, and Harry kisses him through it, soft encouragement. 

“I like you very much, Eggsy,” he sighs again. It’s not bluster and it’s not heat of the moment. It’s just how it is.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eggsy sobs out. “Fuck, Harry, I—”

“Shh,” Harry soothes. “Shh, you’re nearly there.”

*

It’s a very languid morning.

The sun has finally broken through the cloud cover, lighting up the brilliant hills. Speckled rays of dawn creep through the slatted blinds across the french doors, gentle tendrils of warmth stretching out towards the bed. Harry has no desire to move with any kind of haste; it’s years since he was last fucked and he can feel it. It’s not an unpleasant ache. Not when the boy is still cocooned in bed with him, his face utterly uninhibited in sleep. His skin is very smooth, and Harry runs his thumb over the hard line of his jaw. Almost always clenched, braced for some violent unknown; slack now, open-mouthed, wet breath.

Harry feels entirely compelled to kiss him. Gently, while he’s sleeping, and then more firmly as he stirs awake. He puts his fingers to Eggsy’s mouth for him to lathe dozily, kisses away the low grunt he exhales as Harry fingers him. He’s likely not cognisant enough to come, but Harry has that distinct desire to consume him before their reverie is over.

“What time’re we s’posed to leave?” Eggsy mumbles, shifting his hips up for Harry’s benefit.

“Whatever damn time we like,” Harry replies firmly. 

Eggsy does, to his delight, manage to get off. A stuttering, low-grade orgasm that Harry licks off of his sensitive cockhead and stomach. “Jesus,” Eggsy hisses. “I like the look of my dick in your mouth.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Eggsy laughs, then. “G’morning, Harry.”

“Good morning, Eggsy,” Harry replies, ever so pleased.

*

They’re slow to dress. Handsy with each other. They don’t fuck again in the shower but stand under it for a long time, wasting water, kissing. It feels like a long goodbye, although Harry knows they will see each other again. He feels—

Loosely committed now, much to his chagrin.

Naked and dripping in the bathroom, he slicks Eggsy’s wet hair back from his forehead and lets his hands come to rest on the boy’s collarbone. Kisses the bridge of his nose, the tip of it, his top lip - almost but not quite stubbled - his chin. 

“I enjoyed this very much, Eggsy,” he says, quiet. His voice seems to dart around the echoey tiles.

“Me too,” Eggsy replies, just as soft. He sounds odd in a way Harry can’t quite place.

“I’d like us to do it again sometime.”

“Sometime, yeah. I think that’d be—nice, Harry.”

“It would be nice. Very nice indeed.”

They’re being so coy that they have to laugh, both of them. Eggsy surges forward to kiss him again, grinning. Harry pulls on his own trousers but Eggsy tugs up the zipper, buttons his waistband. Same again for his shirt; Harry slipping his arms into the sleeves and then standing upright and still for Eggsy to tend his buttons. Lifting his chin when Eggsy reaches his collar, his eyes lidded, terribly, earnestly pleased.

*

Harry is exceedingly well trained in dealing with circumstances that go, to put it mildly, abruptly off the rails.

*

They’re literally packing up the cab. That’s how close it comes to being fine. He could have dropped Eggsy off at the train station with a light little kiss and a pencil in the diary as to when they might next meet. Harry already had vague plans to take him out for coffee somewhere that really cares. Alain Ducasse, perhaps.

But just as he’s buckling up the last of the suitcases, and Eggsy is shrugging his gaudy hoodie back over his head, he sees the boy reach into his front pocket and pull out a trinket, just a necklace that he slips quickly over his ears, a flash of gold and coral catching the mid-morning sun, slides under his collar thoughlessly—

“Show me that,” Harry barks. He asks it before he’s even aware that he’s going to.

“This?” Eggsy says mildly. He tugs it back out and holds it up in front of him, letting it spin. The thin chain. Glazed pink around the circumference, a complex knot in the middle that looks like nothing more than a flourish to the untrained eye. Small, unobtrusive numbers etched into the back plate.

Harry will not remember, later, much of what he felt. Only words, just actions. 

“Kind of tacky, innit?” Eggsy laughs.

“You fucking thief,” Harry says darkly.

Eggsy’s smile slips, but doesn’t drop entirely. “Y’what?”

Harry’s reflexes are whipcrack fast. He backhands the boy smartly on the cheek, catching him hard enough to knock him backwards, staggering. 

“Harry, what the _fuck—”_

“Where did you get this.” His voice is so even it barely registers as a question.

Harry grabs the boy’s collar, pulling him in close. That medallion was a gift. A promise and an heirloom. Not an ornament for some uppity little streetwalker.

“It’s mine,” Eggsy manages. He doesn’t stutter, though Harry’s hand is high, almost choking, against his neck.

“It is not yours.”

He yanks the medallion free. The chain snaps at the back of Eggsy’s neck, not cleanly, a spark of fragile links jumping up and scattering to the floor. Then Harry gets both hands on Eggsy’s neck and shakes, hard. The kind of shake that’s meant to rattle skulls. Not missing a single beat, he grabs Eggsy’s hair, tight. If the boy struggles it will only hurt him more. His hair is still damp from their long shower.

“It is not yours, and you will tell me who you stole it from.”

“ _Harry—_ ” It’s a shattered gasp.

“I gave this medallion to a young boy named Gary Unwin sixteen years ago,” Harry says, horrifyingly cold. Truth is of no consequence now; he already knows he’ll wipe the boy however this turns out. His standard issue watch is in the cab, nestled next to his briefcase and umbrella. He’s no fool; Harry is a fucking spy.

“That’s me,” Eggsy chokes. “That’s my name.”

“You little cunt,” Harry tuts.

“I swear it, I swear to god—”

“Tell me your father’s name,” Harry says, waiting for the scrambled lie. He is utterly sure he’s right.

“Lee,” Eggsy gasps out immediately. “Lee Unwin.”

Harry does not let go of his hair. 

He doesn’t move at all.

“He’s dead,” Eggsy says, almost sobbing now. “He died when I was a kid and this is all I’ve got left—”

“Be quiet,” Harry snaps at once. “Just fucking be quiet for a second.”

He needs to think. It doesn’t—

It doesn’t usually take this long for him to make up his mind, in the field.

He remembers it so clearly. The wailing widow, the uncomprehending little boy. It was up to Kingsman surveillance to keep tabs on these leftover families. It wasn’t Harry’s job. Merlin’s scampering assistants keeping names, dates, addresses on file; recommendations for potential recruitment. He had not looked in a long time to see if anything was marked against Gary Unwin’s name.

It wasn’t Harry’s job—

“I’m going to put you in a chokehold,” he explains carefully. “I’m not going to kill you. It’s to render you unconscious.”

He feels the boy start to twist under his hand. Throws his arm around the boy’s neck, puts his whole body weight into the grip. “Harry, don’t, Harry, please don’t do this—”

“You won’t remember it at all by the time you wake up. It’s going to be quite alright.”

One forearm pressed against his tender neck. Harry had held him like this, gentler, thirty six hours ago, his cock buried deep. Harry brings his left hand up to the boy’s face, covering his mouth. Pinching shut his nose.

Eggsy lets out a wounded choke. He struggles. He struggles, elbowing back wildly trying to catch Harry’s chest with a sharp enough jab to distract him; but Harry has practice at this and the boy is crying and running out of air all the quicker for it.

It takes about sixteen seconds for him to turn into dead weight in Harry’s arms. Longer than some Kingsman agents. 

Carefully, Harry lays him on his back on the floor.

The lodge’s plush rug is scuffed to hell where his feet were trying and failing for purchase against it. Everything is very quiet inside the lodge. Outside, of course, the world carries on.

Harry takes a short breath.

He would very much like a scotch. There is only leftover champagne in the fridge. He pours himself a glass regardless and drinks it with deep swallows. It’s cold enough to burn his throat.

There is sweat beading on his forehead.

He dabs at it carefully with his handkerchief.

And then he opens up the comms on his glasses.

“Galahad,” comes Merlin’s voice almost immediately. His voice is utterly even and he is fucking furious. “So nice of you to touch base.”

“I need a clean-up,” Harry says.

“Your op was two days ago.”

“My current location. Ignore the fucking paperwork. This is off the books and you damn well know it.”

Merlin says nothing for a very long time.

“Make it discreet,” Harry tells him. “I need his memory wiped long-term. Hazy will do, you don’t need to bleed him dry.”

On the other end of the line, Merlin is completely silent.

“Do you have my fucking location or not?” Harry snaps, tetchy.

“—We have you,” Merlin confirms.

“Get it done,” Harry barks. He suddenly feels awfully weary, and awfully unsteady on his feet. It’s not protocol, not even close, but—

“Bring something for me, will you? Scrub the last few days clean.”

Merlin is about to say something, so Harry promptly hangs up.

He still has the medallion in his clenched fist. Kneels briefly by the boy's body, finds his pocket and slips the necklace in. The broken chain slips out from under the soft cotton of his hoodie, and Harry has to nudge it back in for safekeeping. After this, he checks the boy's pulse. He knows within seconds he's fine. Doesn't need to linger.

Carefully, he stands, and goes to the kitchenette to pour himself another glass of champagne. Sips this one. 

Harry sits heavily on the edge of the bed, and breathes out very evenly through his nose. He can’t stand to look at the mess. He can hear Eggy’s shallow, injured breathing; that’s enough. Out on the lodge’s gravel driveway, the cab’s engine is idling. He’d turned it on to warm up in the brisk, high morning cool; ready to head home.

*

Kingsman caught up to him first.

*

“What’s your name, young man?” He remembers asking gently.

“His name is Gary,” the mother had snapped, before the boy could even open his mouth.

“Hello, Gary,” Harry had said, holding up the medallion; smiling.


End file.
